I've been covering the business of news, information and entertainment in one form or another for more than 10 years. In February 2014, I moved to San Francisco to cover the tech beat. My primary focus is social media and digital media, but I'm interested in other aspects, including but not limited to the sharing economy, lifehacking, fitness & sports tech and the evolving culture of the Bay Area. In past incarnations I've worked at AOL, Conde Nast Portfolio, Radar and WWD. Circle me on Google+, follow me on Twitter or send me tips or ideas at jbercovici@forbes.com.

Buzzmedia Buys Spin, Adding Print Magazine To Blog Empire

With its large portfolio of music and pop culture websites, Buzzmedia makes a natural home for its newest acquisition, except for one thing: It’s a print magazine. Specifically, it’s Spin, the 27-year-old title founded by Bob Guccione Jr., sold to Miller Publishing for $42 million in 1997, and then sold again, to the Hartle Media and the McEvoy Group, for $5 million, in 2006.

Now it’s changing hands again, becoming part of a family of blogs that includes Celebuzz, Idolator, Stereogum and The Frisky, among many others. Tyler Goldman, Buzzmedia’s CEO, won’t say what the purchase price is, but says, “This is the biggest acquisition we’ve done.”

Spin itself has withered somewhat since its heyday in the 1990s, when it was closely identified with the rise of alternative rock, but it still has a circulation of 350,000. Along the way, it’s also added a website with 1 million monthly uniques, a sophisticated iPad app and an events business.

Unlocking Spin.com’s potential is priority No. 1, says Goldman, whose sites now reach a combined total of 120 million unique visitors monthly. “There’s a lot of great content there that’s a little hard for the audience to get to,” he says. “We want to make it more accessible from a [user-interface] and product perspective.”

While Spin.com is “a little broader and more multi-genre” than the sites Buzzmedia already owns, it’s not a huge leap. The print magazine, on the other hand, marks a major new direction, one that few digital-only publishers would contemplate in 2012.

Goldman stops short of saying he’s committed to keeping Spin in print, suggesting that other options are at least on the table. “We believe print has a role,” he says. “We’re early on in defining what that role is relative to the other platforms.”

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